I have been pulling my hair out (whats left of it) exploring all the gps and FF's this spring. I just can't decide. I normally pull the trigger pretty quick when I see what I like. I thought I was set at least with the FF (getting either the Furuno 600L or the 582L) but frankly they have poor resolution and compared poorly to some of the newer units offered by the "B" companies. Furuno FF's under 2K you get a small screen and with poor resolution. If you want something really decent from them you need to drop 3500+. In the store they had a Lowrance unit next to the furuno 600/582 and I have to say the Lowrance had an amazing screen. (White background with 640X480 res on decent size screen, (not their top of the line 104 either) it was very sharp and the furunos looked very blocky in comparison) Also the buttons on Lowrance were more intuitive.
I am now seriously considering a big screen all-in one unit now either the garmin 2010C or the Lowrance 104C, but it would be nice to hear how the FF elements of these units work.

I have hit the "reset switch" now and I am re-looking at all therse units....I am willing to go up to 3K for both a FF and GPS chartplotter either all in one or separate...what do you guys like in that range?

I have the 2010C, but not the black box, depth sounder. I have a big sitex FF so I don't need the add on for the garmin. I think adding a FF to the 2010C would kind of defeat the main purpose of getting a big chart plotter, which is to make it easier to read the charts on the screen.

That LCX19 looks sweet and the 18 seems nice for money...

I'm reinvestigating all of this too but even though I'm trying to conserve realestate, I don't want all eggs in one basket.

I have a Furuno 6100 mono finder and a 1622 Radar that came with the boat and those will stay on for the foreseable future. But I'm tossed between getting the 1850D Chartplotter which I know is a great deal :D or a different unit like the LCX18 sounder / plotter. Still haven't decided. Pros and Cons to all...

The Lowrance is nice because you throw a 2nd MMC chip in it and you can Xref your plotter tracks with your sounder info and replay them on ther PC. A big win-win if you want to research your findings that deeply :D

The interesting thing about the large split screen gps/ff is that the split portion is still significanly bigger then all of the sub $2000 furuno's. If you split a 10.5 in screen in half you end up with 2, 7.5" virtual screens.

Don't forget about the good old fashioned paper charts, they still work whent the power goes out.

Well..........I finally bit the bullet... I think it was harder picking out electronics then a boat! I went round 'n round for a long time (months) not making little progress until I finally talked with the right guys (several of them).

I did some serious homework and decided the best FF out there (for my needs) is the Raymarine black-box (the hsb2 unit). By far the clearest 640X480 unit out there and most feature rich in my view. (not cheap though)

I was going to get a separate different make of 10" chartplotter and have a dedicated RayM 7" FF, but in the end decide to go all Raymarine. Got the L1260DRC 10" depth finder/chartplotter. I can add the Radar next season and get chartplotter overlays, ect via the hsb2 networking and then have the complete system I want (one screen chartplotter/w radar overlay) and the other a stand alone FF.

For a radio it was a toss up between the Icom 502 and the Standard Sectrum+. I think the Standard offers a slightly better value has a few added features, (hailer, foghorn ect) but I tended like the rugged looks (and solid reviews) of the Icom and went with that. And I had a standard before and I had problems with it. I also got an high end 8' antenna (instead of the ultra cheap one on there now). I figured if I want to talk to you RI guys from off the vineyard I will need some a little more height and a decent antenna.

There is *so* much stuff out there with different standards it is hard to decide. I spent a lot of time just investigating the charts alone!. Ran all the at-home software mapping and unit demos, spoke to a few of the reps (these chart guys actuually know a lot about the competing CP units.) For the most part they are all pretty decent and each has their unique features but I tended to like C-MAP over the others and sought out CP's that ran those.

Now comes the fun part...installation :hs: . Anyone know of a midget who is also a marine electrician? I hate wiring up a CC! A big inboard is so much easier.

I'll get out there fishing one of these days.....Thank god my surf stuff is rockin'...that is sooooo much simpler (and less costly) to deal with.

Anyway, thanks for all your inputs...they were quite helpful.